Younis Raza

At the present moment Composer Sophia Gubaidulina first discussed her violin concerto, In tempus praesens, with Anne-Sophie Mutter, the violinist who commissioned the work and to whom it is dedicated, one hour before their first rehearsal for its...

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How do faith and science interact in the creative arts? In the octatonic, according to rumors at a two-day symposium of 21st-century music held at SF State Feb. 6 and 7. The high-powered gathering included a fascinating retrospective of works by SF State professor and composer Richard Festinger and a concert of pieces by seven winners of the Emerging Composers competition. Saturday’s events also focused on Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter, honoring these two modern giants with papers, a...

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Delightful events as composer turns 100 San Francisco Performances finished its two-day Elliott Carter centennial celebration last Sunday, Dec. 7, with a concert of his piano works by Ursula Oppens, a mainstay of contemporary piano literature. She was in the Bay Area last year when Cal Performances held a Fredric Rzewski festival, where she played punishing piano duets with the composer. Carter’s life and piano compositions were explicated beforehand by Robert...

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A concert of revelations and extremes at Stanford This year marks the centenary of Olivier Messiaen, a French composer who had a profound impact on 20th century music. Last Thursday Stanford Lively Arts kicked off festivities in his honor with a concert of one of his seminal works, Quator pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time), which Messiaen composed while a POW in a German concentration camp, Stalag VIIIA. The unusual instrumentation—violin, cello,...

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Inauguration of the new Oakland cathedral Constructed  over the last three years, Oakland’s newest cathedral held an inaugural concert Sunday evening, Nov. 2, with the Oakland Symphony and Symphony Chorus. Rising like a glass ship at the edge of Lake Merritt, the huge Cathedral of Christ the Light is the headquarters for the Oakland Catholic Diocese. Offices and outreach programs are housed in the immense concrete lower level, including a health clinic for those...

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Joshua Bell in superlative appearance with SF Symphony A confluence of great conducting, brilliant playing and unusual programming made for a top-notch concert last Thursday at Davies Symphony Hall. Fabio Luisi led the S. F. Symphony in a program of Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Franz Schmidt’s Symphony No. 4 in C major, and two of the great works for violin and orchestra performed by famed artist Joshua Bell. Luisi, conductor of the Vienna Symphony and...

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Categories: music